Pastry chef Jin Caldwell checks a batch of Cheesecake Bon-Bons this week at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Henderson. The company has a high-end line of candies, called Ethel's Chocolates, that is available only online and at its chocolate cafes in the Chicago area. Photos by John Gurzinski. The Mars Retail Group, maker of this Deluxe Collection of chocolates, hopes to spur chocolate buying beyond Valentine's Day, Easter and Christmas. Cheesecake Bon-Bons are popped out of a tray at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Henderson.

It's a corporate success story familiar to any coffee-chugging American: Convince consumers to ditch that 50-cent cup of convenience-store joe for an exotic java blend that costs up to $4.

Now, a similar concept could make Henderson's own Mars Retail Group the Starbucks of the confectionery world.

Last year, Mars Retail Group unveiled Ethel's Chocolates, a high-end division designed to complement the company's more affordable Ethel M line. Ethel's Chocolates are made in Henderson and sold online and at 10 Chicago-area Ethel's Chocolate Lounges, cocoa-focused cafes that encourage customers to linger over gourmet candies and drinks.

"Ethel's is the first chocolate out there that treats consumers as other categories have," said John Haugh, president of Mars Retail Group. "Instead of making people wait for great chocolate two or three times a year, Ethel's gives them opportunities to enjoy premium chocolate 365 days a year if that's what they want to do."

Ethel's was born of an effort to spur candy spending beyond major holidays such as Valentine's Day, Easter and Christmas. In addition to buying a 1-pound box of Ethel M chocolates for special occasions, the idea goes, consumers will also duck into a chocolate lounge more frequently to enjoy a handful of luxury confections.

Ethel's Chocolate Lounges, with their pink-and-brown decor and overstuffed chairs and couches, invite customers to make a social event of their indulgence. Chocolate-themed cookbooks, coffee-table tomes and posters with pithy mottoes -- "Is it a tryst if it's with a truffle?" -- further hook sweets lovers.

Haugh declined to disclose per-store revenue trends, but he said sales at Ethel's Chocolate Lounges are meeting projections.

The stores are doing brisk business in the event-rental market, with customers taking over lounges for book club meetings, wedding receptions, group psychic readings and even "menopause parties," Haugh said. Couples flock to Ethel's for first dates and marriage proposals. It's all about creating "an environment where people can enjoy themselves and celebrate all things chocolate," Haugh said.

But Ethel's doesn't sell itself on the lounge experience alone.

Its chocolates are distinct from the candies Mars sells through Ethel M, which has 13 stores in Nevada. Truffle flavors at Ethel's include espresso, honey and piña colada; the line's Cocktail Collection offers confections tinged with essences of spiced rum, brandy, champagne and mixed drinks such as mojitos and margaritas. The American Pop Collection has flavors such as Peanut Butter and Jelly, Cinna-Swirl and Apple Pie.

At Ethel's Chocolate Lounges, menu items include 10 chocolates and hot cocoa for two for $18. Chocolate fondue for two, with strawberries, bananas, marshmallows or chunks of pound cake for dipping, is $18 to $25 depending on the number of accompaniments.

The candy industry is competitive, so Haugh wouldn't detail differences between the manufacturing of Ethel's and Ethel M candies.

But he said that of the several hundred Henderson workers cooking up Mars Retail Group's candies, just 10 work in the Ethel's division. The makers of Ethel's work with small batches and lavish individualized attention on each chocolate, hand-squeezing fruits for fillings and painting and transferring art onto candies one at a time. Cocktail confections are adorned with illustrations of drinks. The Cinna-Swirl is drenched in a cocoa-butter "icing" to recreate the look of a cinnamon roll, and the Apple Pie has a faux lattice crust stenciled on its top.

So what's the premium on Mars Retail Group's premium candy?

Haugh wouldn't say how much Ethel's Chocolates cost to make, but he noted that the brand is priced about a third higher than Ethel M's boxed confections. A 1-pound, 1-ounce box of Ethel M Creamy Milk Chocolates, which contains up to 40 pieces, costs $29. Ethel's sells its candies by the piece rather than by the pound; a 24-piece collection of Ethel's Chocolates sells online and in stores for $24.

In going upscale with its candies, Mars Retail Group is capitalizing on the "trading-up" trend -- the notion that middle-class consumers want to incorporate small bits of accessible luxury into everyday life. Seattle-based Starbucks single-handedly spread the trading-up gospel in the 1990s, when it opened stores by the hundreds to peddle gourmet coffees. Today, consumers are looking for the high-end in everything from microbrewed beers to hand-crafted artisan breads and cheeses.

Industry experts say the trading-up craze was bound to reach the chocolate sector.

"In the past five or six years, consumers have had a lot of extra money to spend, and they've been exposed to the marketing of finer things," said Van Billington, executive director of Retail Confectioners International, a trade group in Glenview, Ill. "I think it's natural to take chocolate in that direction because it can be marketed in the same way."

Mars isn't the first confectioner to go gourmet. Nor is it the first candy maker to open a cocoa-centric cafe. But the Ethel's Chocolate Lounge concept is singular for its size and its laserlike focus on chocolate.

Leonidas, a 93-year-old Belgian chocolatier, has joined the chocolate-cafe market, but with just two locations in Southern California. Vosges Haut Chocolate has stores in Miami, Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, but limited opportunities for customers to settle into comfy chairs and share a pot of chocolate fondue. Bittersweet-The Chocolate Cafe has delighted customers since it opened in the San Francisco Bay area last year. But like Leonidas, Bittersweet is limited to two cafes in one city.

Moonstruck Chocolate Co. of Oregon and Indiana's South Bend Chocolate Co. come closest to Ethel's Chocolate Lounges in size and scope. Moonstruck has a total of seven chocolate cafes in Oregon, California and Illinois, while South Bend has 11 chocolate cafes in three Midwestern states. South Bend's locations deviate from a chocolate emphasis with menus of sandwiches and salads.

Though the chocolate-lounge field is increasingly crowded, few companies have the appetite for expansion -- or the head start on market dominance -- that Ethel's has.

Mars' biggest candy competitor, the Hershey Co., has one chocolate cafe at its Pennsylvania headquarters. Another major confectioner, Switzerland's Nestlé, sells franchises for cookie shops under its Toll House brand but hasn't opened chocolate cafes in the United States.

"It's always the case that the first one out is the one everyone else needs to catch," Billington said.

In Southern Nevada, the Ethel M Chocolate Factory on Sunset Way at Mountain Vista Street has been a well-known and beloved institution since it opened in 1980. As many as 1,000 visitors a day tour the single-story, 43,500-square-foot plant, wending their way past expansive windows that allow them glimpses of candy-making in action.

There are no plans to complement the factory with Ethel's Chocolate Lounges in Southern Nevada, though Mars executives are scouring America for potential new cafe markets. Ethel's Chocolate Lounges could open in other major cities by late this year, though Haugh wouldn't identify the regions company officials are studying.

Southern Nevada might not have an Ethel's Chocolate Lounge to call its own, but Haugh said Mars Retail Group is committed to keeping its Henderson headquarters and factory. The arid desert air benefits chocolate manufacturing and makes caramels and toffees easier to work with. A favorable business climate and a plentiful local work force also will keep the manufacturer here, Haugh said.